From Mutual Aid to Mutual Assured Destruction: How We Got Here
Every culture has its myth of an ancient Golden Age and a version of The Fall, when humans lost the favor of the gods and were exiled from some variation on the Garden of Eden. These tales may be encrypted memories of the transition from the prehistoric Stone Age to the age of Civilization, a.k.a. “history.” Some thinkers trace all our 21st-century troubles to that shift, when our ancestors embarked on the glorious era of empire and conquest – not only of their neighbors, but of nature itself....
What Is Civilization Without a Little Civility?
“It’s the end of civilization as we know it!” The cartoon prophet means the “civilization” we learned about in school: technology, government, the economy, arts and culture, the media. But these are like the shell a seagoing crustacean builds to live in as it grows. “Civilization” is what lives inside the shell, the fragile creature protected by its calcium walls: our capacity to act in a civilized manner. Speak respectfully. Remember our manners. Treat one another humanely. In a word,...
Yes, Q, There Is a Conspiracy!
Resist the impulse to consider your political foes less than human; it’s the key ingredient in every system of exploitation and discrimination, every wartime propaganda campaign. Those who pull the strings from behind the curtain fund both political parties because the more we divide ourselves, the more we conquer ourselves. Read on for an exploration of what lies behind all the conspiracy theories out there, and why we can’t let them distract us from the deeper threat to our divided nation....
Everything is Connected: “Cop City” and Climate Change
The movement to save Atlanta’s South River Forest is a microcosm of the front-line struggle that’s heating up everywhere to halt both the devastation of our planet’s life-support systems and the alarming erosion of democracy worldwide. Please read on for a brief update, followed by a poet’s-eye view of the larger issues behind this fiery confrontation between a Democratic and largely African-American city government and the people it claims to represent. Then use the links at the end to learn...
Stephen Wing
Poet, activist and author Stephen Wing lives in Atlanta with his wife Dawn Aura and assorted pets. Read more about him here.